Progressive Violence

Theorizing the War on Terror

Michael Blain, Angeline Kearns-Blain

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367821173
• eBook ISBN: 9781351018081
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Soziologie

This book examines the role of collective violence in the achievement of solidarity, shedding light on the difficulty faced by sociology in theorizing violence and warfare as a result of the discipline's tendency to idealize society in an attempt to legitimize the idea of progressive social change. Using the global War on Terror as a focal point, the authors develop this argument through the related issues of power, knowledge, and ethics, explaining the War on Terror in terms of the Anglo-American tradition of imperial power and domination. Exploring the victimage rituals through which society is brought together in the ritual domination and destruction of a constructed "villain," Progressive Violence: Theorizing the War on Terror also considers the price of the liberal moral values in terms of which the global war on terror is frequently justified, and the volume of "progressive violence" involved in advancing the cause of freedom. The authors use this case to theorize the general role of vicarious victimage ritual in the social genesis of political violence and sadism, and its calculated use by politicians to achieve their imperial aims. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory with interests in terrorism, violence, and geopolitics.

1 Introduction

The aim of this book is to problematize political violence and its absence from sociological theory, and to offer a corrective. We argue that this problem has been eclipsed by a sunny, progressive, liberal understanding of human society and progress. It theorizes “progressive violence” and the US-inspired global “War on Terror” (WoT) in terms of three interrelated issues: power, knowledge, and ethics. We argue that sociologists have a problem theorizing the phenomena of political violence and its role in human social life. Sociologists have no problem condemning it as “barbarism” or as an “outrageous” violation of the weak and the oppressed—which it absolutely can be. Sociologists have idealized sociality to legitimate their desires for progressive social change. It has also covered up their willing participation in acts of political violence directed against tyrants and terrorists, “enemies of progress,” and “enemies of freedom.” They have ignored or played down the robust evidence presented by historical sociologists that political violence targeting domestic and foreign enemies generates powerful and intense in-group solidarity.

Evidence in support of this argument is based on a long-term historical genealogy of political terrorism culminating in the WoT. The empirical case studies that inform this project are summarized and past research updated. Past research traced the Anglo-American concept of terrorism to the power struggles of the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, and its elaboration and functioning in Anglo-American political and administrative discourses (Blain and Blain 2012). These developments also played a major role in the emergence and legitimation of 19th century positivist sociology. The insecurity generated by the dangers of civil war and revolutionary movements continues to drive the biopolitics of terrorism. It has continued to influence how sociologists and social scientists more generally think about political violence (Blain et al. 2016).

In spite of this, the actual violence of war, military action, and revolutionary movements is a relatively neglected field within contemporary sociological theory. As some argue, sociological theory and sociology in general is largely “a demilitarized zone” (Joas 1999; Joas and Knöbl 2013; West and Matthewman 2016). One searches in vain for a chapter on violence, warfare, and the military in introductory sociology textbooks. The military does not appear in the list of chapters on social “Institutions.” This seems odd given the nations that produce much of the most influential sociological theorizing in the world today are the same nations involved either directly or as enablers of much of the violence in the world today. It does seem relevant to this discussion that many of the nations involved in perpetrating the WoT contain in their borders some of the most influential sociological establishments in some of the most prestigious universities in the world. In the US, for example, military institutions are deeply embedded in our everyday cultural life and communities. The global reach of the US military also means that this is true of many other nation-states in the world.

Given this historical situation we think that the lack of interest in violence, war, and the military in sociological theorizing seems obtuse; we suspect it might be the result of a deliberate and therefore unethical decision. This theme is elaborated in a final chapter on truth ethics in research on political violence. As far as we know there is no theory of warfare presented in introductory theory texts; the one or two exceptions critique sociology for its failure to deal with military institutions, warfare, and political violence that have constituted modern society (Giddens 1985; Tiryakian 1999; Joas 2013). Gidden faults the dominance of a narrow economism in 19th-century sociological theory. Joas attributes this gap in thought to modernization theory. Tiryakian blames the Enlightenment tradition. Very few sociologists acknowledge the decisive influence the specter of French revolutionary “terror” and its influence on the 19th-century social sciences. Wallerstein (2011) argues that the specter of French revolutionary terrorism contributed to the triumph of centrist liberalism as a governing system of thought. The power-knowledge dynamic that it set in motion led to the constitution of the social sciences (i.e., economics, political science, and sociology).

The theory sections of sociology textbooks usually do not focus on political violence as a theoretical problem. It is something sociologists are against. Society is based on cooperation and solidarity, not the Hobbesian sanction of sovereign terror and the violence of victimage rituals perpetrated on deviants and enemies. Sociology is the knowledge generated in defense of society. Violence, in post-structuralism, can be conceptualized as the excluded Other of positivism—even presentations of Marxism (class struggle and class warfare) and power conflict theory. One can find Sociology textbooks with chapters on political sociology and “political” institutions that devote a few paragraphs to the topics relevant to war and the military. Discussions of military violence may also be a tangential aspect of the section on social movements. This is no accident. A whole generation of social movement theorists devoted themselves to delinking social movements from the specter of fascist “terror” and revolutionary warfare to fashion a more “positive” view (Blain 1994). The Chapter on “Deviance and Crime” does deal with criminal violence and homicide. There is no discussion of war crimes.

At the same time, the WoT and its imperial “security” and counterterrorism practices have seriously problematized some of the fundamental assumptions of sociology. The US-led WoT and its global proliferation of counterterrorism practices have seriously problematized the old differentiation between criminal and political violence. Criminologists have targeted the prison as a socialization agency that radicalizes inmates, transforming them into terrorists (see Blain’s 2014 review of Mark Hamm’s 2013 book on this topic); criminologists are also directly involved in the National Security Agency (NSA) sponsored research in support of the WoT. These links and lines of research are elaborated in greater detail in Chapter 4 on the biopolitics of terrorism and Chapter 5: Ethics of Truth.

Our approach to these issues and questions owes a great deal to the late Michel Foucault. He thought that there were three possible fields of genealogical investigation. In one line of investigation recorded in his posthumously published lectures, Foucault (2011) traced the genealogy of ethics in relation to the “Courage of Truth.” Nietzsche had first posed this question in statements regarding the radically modern scientific ethic and the willingness to sacrifice for the truth. The questions posed by this will to truth, particularly the nuclear scientists involved in nuclear weapons programs—Robert Oppenheimer opposition vs. Edward Teller’s advocacy—had inspired Foucault to focus on the power/knowledge dynamic. As we all know, Oppenheimer resisted the development of more powerful nuclear weapons. As a consequence, he was attacked as a communist and ostracized, while Edward Teller, a virulent anti-communist, was valorized as the father of the “super” Bomb. Telling the truth can be dangerous, particularly telling the truth to those who have power over your life and can exercise the sovereign right to inflict death. Foucault’s lectures focused on several aspects of the relation to the truth, overcoming cowardice, and the willingness to risk sovereign death to speak truth to power. As a result of the central role of the power/knowledge dynamic in modern society, these issues of truth had taken on special significance in relation to scientific knowledge.

Power/Knowledge dynamic

The reason why “sociological theorizing” is a demilitarized zone relates directly to the difficulty theorists have facing the terrifying truth about political violence and sadism. The power/knowledge dynamic involved is complex and difficult to untangle. The reasons are more complicated than the authors cited before allow. This knot can get us into the heart of our problem with any approach that evades the problematic linkages connecting power elites, victimage ritual, the biopolitics of terrorism, and phenomenon like the WoT.

Members of the power elite that rule American society and manage the Department of Defense (DOD) and its military institutions will not financially support this kind of research and in some cases will actively oppose and attack researchers who do (see Blain 2012). Social scientists get blowback when they seek to know what is going on with the military and war, or when they link these practices to power and domination. Researchers can be stigmatized by their involvement in critical research that targets “counterterrorism” programs and research. They can be defamed by public authorities as threats to national security or anathematized as unpatriotic traitors to the cause. These researchers can be excluded from professional communities on grounds that they constitute a threat to the legitimacy and authority of the discipline (e.g. Mills and Noam Chomsky).

Another reason is epistemological. It is no more reductive to link the war and the military to power relations than to link it to culture or religiosity. War is a social power relation and a social mode of domination. We need to think of history, culture, and power in the same theory. Sociological theorizing is part and parcel of the “reflexive modernization” that constitutes modernity. As a result of the overemphasis on political-economy and industrialism, the Classic theorists ignored the constitutive role of political violence in modernization (Giddens 1985). Modernization involved the active destruction of traditional societies and in some cases the genocide of indigenous people. As such we need to be very skeptical of accounts of “Wartime Sociology” provided by insiders in the “sociological establishment,” an establishment largely dominated by Americans in the post-WWII period and deeply embedded in the power structure of the “warfare” state.

Some theorists critique Mills’ account of the power elite and the new middle class, and the role of the US military in global politics for its neglect of culture and civil society. They fail to mention his trenchant critique of popular culture, social scientists and professors, and their role in the “Cold War” (Mills 1959). Many sociologists wrongly assume that research in this tradition stopped after Mills (Domhoff 2017). It is true that most of this research focused on how their class interest influenced the power elite’s way of defining the national interest and the Cold War. They are wrong to claim that research in this tradition came to an end. Only when Mills’ power elite analysis began to inform anti-war and peace movement activism did it become anathema to theorize the military and war in sociology (Blain 1989).

In addition to Joas’ (1999) account of sociology’s troubled relationship to war and the military (invoked in West and Matthewman 2016) we add Saint-Amand’s (1996) critique of Enlightenment social theories. We reject Saint-Amands’ use of Rene Girard’s functionalist explanation of ritual victimage as caused by social conflicts and tensions generated by disruptive and clashing mimetic desires. Again, the problem with Girard’s is the same problem we have with some proponents of neofunctionalism and cultural sociology. He refuses to face the terrible truth that knowledgeable elites orchestrate victimage rituals as a calculated means of politics. Victimage ritual, we argue, is a rationalized and refined political strategy employed by power elites to achieve their agendas. Girard reduces ritual victimage to a nonrational and mechanistic response that functions to resolve potentially disruptive social conflicts and tensions generated by clashing mimetic desires. Again, the problem with Girard’s analysis is the same problem we have with the “strong program” in cultural sociology. Girard refuses to face the terrible truth that knowledgeable elites orchestrate victimage rituals by amplifying mimetic desires as a rationally, calculated instrument to achieve their political goals. In fact, his theory, taught in many universities to the elites of society, provides the template. Victimage ritual, we argue, is a rationalized and refined political strategy employed by power elites to achieve their agendas.

Amand is more trenchant than Tiryakian (1999) on the agency involved in the active suppression of the problematic of hostility in human social life. He argues that Enlightenment social theories were tailored to the interests of progressive movements, revolutionary liberalism, that that functioned to legitimate the violence of the modern nation state as “progressive” mode of power and domination. The philosophes assumed things about “human nature” that entailed the “laws of hostility.” These theorists emphasized the positive and played down the negative. Some theorists were revolutionaries who supported “terror” as a legitimate means to achieve the democratic goal of building a liberal, egalitarian society. The assumptions they made (and many sociologists still make) were tailored to their utopian desires to engineer the good society—a laudable goal. The knowledge of the laws of society would serve to legitimate the use of political power and policing projects to insure domestic security and imperial sovereignty entailed by these projects. The active and willful suppression of the problem of violent conflict entailed by their theories of human nature and society were immediately and justly mocked by Diderot, de Sade, and Nietzsche. This linkage to the terror generated a series of reactionary discourses linking the French revolution to “evil” and the social pathologies of modern “liberal” societies.

The emergence of the social sciences in the 19th century and their continued functioning right up to the present have to be approached in a much more complex way in a historical genealogy of “liberalism,” the social sciences, and “political violence” (see Blain 2007, also Wallerstein 2011). Needless to say, we think sociological thought has been and continues to be in the verifiable history of the present deeply embedded in the power structures that shape the everyday life practices of modern society. We also think Domhoff’s (2017) power elite account of the “policy planning network” in the US, and its links to the elite universities, is directly relevant to an analysis of social scientists’ involvements in the current wars. This line of research shows how social science knowledge functions in the history of the present and the WoT. The charge that this knowledge of the power elite does not relate to the everyday life, military, and warfare in our societies is empirically false. It continues to inform political activism and resistance right now and in the present.

There is a problem with the many sociologists who depend on the “insider” accounts and textbook accounts of the history of sociological thought. These histories need to include research on the social and psychological sciences by historical sociologists who are not so interested in legitimating a theory campaign in the discipline or in spinning yarn so tailored to the interests of the sociological elites at the time. We recommend Mills’ (1959) or Giddens (1985) as well as the work of many others we reference in this book. A good place to begin would be Simpson’s (1994) monograph detailing the historical emergence of the social science field of “communications research” and a public opinion industry from WW II and its “psychological warfare” programs.

One of the most enduring and vexing problems in sociological theorizing is the inability of theorists to face the sadism clearly evident in “rationalized” military violence. The spectacle of mass violence provides pleasurable viewing on the daily news. We hoped that as champions of the “strong program” of sociological theorizing and research on war and the military that you would propose some kind of cultural analysis of military violence. In this perspective, how would you conceptualize the practices of warfare? Is it a cultural practice, political performance, spectacle of human sacrifice? One could build on Alexander’s (2004) account of 9/11 as a flawed political performance in thinking through the full implications of the WoT. Alexander concluded with the political point that the “terrorism” of 9/11 represented a failure of democratic politics, an act of despair, and an end to politics. We want to extend this critical judgement to the massive military violence of the WoT. The high-tech homicide bombings, the policy of kinetic aerial warfare, involving thousands of bombings and civilian deaths, flattening whole cities and destroying vital human infrastructures, destroying the lives of millions of people in the territories affected, requires some kind of cultural analysis. These massive power performances by the perpetrators of the WoT need to be understood against the background of Western culture. Warfare in this perspective is continuous with the long history of our imperial culture (i.e., Homer’s Iliad, Virgil’s Aeneid, Spenser’s Faerie Queen, and ritual practices of Savage Warfare in the American Mythology of the New Frontier, articulated in films like the Birth of a Nation and Star Wars).

Victimage ritual

Sociologists need to rethink the relation between society and victimage ritual. They have idealized sociality to legitimate their role as “positivist” social scientists in the policy network of the US power elite and their desires for progressive social change. They have ignored or played down the intense in-group solidarity generated by hatred of out-group enemies. It is anathema to many social scientists that groups can fall into hate as well as love, that we get intense pleasure from vicarious participation in victimage rituals, that the ritual domination and destruction of the villain produces intense pleasure as well as moral outrage.

Theorists need to deal more directly with the actual geopolitical practices of political and military violence. The power/terror dynamic was central to the emergence of the liberal nation states and empires, the settler colonialism, and it continues to be central to a theory of the US-led WoT. That imperial tradition survives in the contemporary strategic practices of the national security state. We need to face the truth that the geopolitical power dynamics of empire provoke and produce cycles of resistance and political violence.

We conceptualize the WoT as a mode of imperial power by means of global political victimage ritual. We document the extensive and intensive ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Imperial background and the US power elite
• 3 Political victimage ritual, evil, and the problem of sadism
• 4 Biopolitics of terrorism
• 5 Ethics of truth
• Appendix
• Index